eclipse
by DBKate
Summary: Episode III speculation. A final walk in the dese


**"eclipse"**

**by DBKate, 1999**

**(dbkate2@aol.com)**

* * *

Category: **Angst**, O-W POV (Q/O *SLASH* implied)

Rating: PG-13 -- Spoilers: The Phantom Menace

Disclaimer: These characters belong to George Lucas, not me. I mean no harm and will put them back in their boxes, all nice and neat when I'm done. 

Summary: Episode III speculation. A last walk through the desert ... and a visitation. 

* * *

*turn around*

Nothing is rarer than the simultaneous eclipse of twin suns. 

The odds against such an occurrence are staggering, and yet, darkness is falling on the sands of Tatooine. Deathly still the desert has become and the daytime beasts quiver fearfully as nocturnal creatures lie confused and restless beneath a false, eerie night.

It is in such darkness as this, I now hear your voice.

*turn around*

And so you have finally come, Qui-Gon.

How good of you to join me in my walk across these wastes, Master. I would love to obey your command, but I am no longer capable of looking backwards. There are too many demons clinging to the hem of the my cloak, each one hoping to pull my last bit of strength away and I don't want to encourage them any more than I already have.

You understand, I'm sure.

But one doesn't need to see in order to speak, do they Master? In fact, one doesn't need to see to do anything, or so I have been taught.

In fact, I could stare straight into this eclipse and allow it to blind me, effectively plucking my eyes from my head as so many fallen warriors of myth have done throughout the centuries. Physical blindness becomes men like myself, as we were already blinded from the start.

Blinded by pride ... by noble ambition ... then by the mortifying discovery that everything we've spent our lives striving for, in reality, meant nothing at all.

I must admit I'm more than a little surprised to hear from you, Master. For twenty years you've denied me the sound of your voice and it's been a silent room I've occupied -- dark and cramped, without windows or even a locked door to give me the slightest hope that any other world could possibly exist. 

The walls were rounded and it almost drove me mad, my desperate search for the concrete corners of my prison as I paraded in endless circles, waiting ... praying for the voice that never came.

You realize too, that if you had visited me once in all that time, even if only to say, "Obi-Wan, I love you not," the now-frozen parts of my soul might have survived. I might even have flourished beneath the pressure to win back the approval of my dead Master, forcing the Wheel of Fate to spin backward by sheer will alone.

But, of course, that was not to be.

Now, where to begin, my Master. I have many stories to tell, if you are so inclined to hear them. I can sing to you the dirges of a young man's grief and loneliness and it will no doubt astound you that I still know the words and dark music by heart. You see, this young man lost the love, the light, of his soul with the single plunge of a saber and he never quite recovered from it.

This man's dying love wrung a promise from him, one that his pride insisted he fulfill without a single moment of regret.

That might have been the biggest mistake of all.

*turn around*

No, I cannot do that Qui-Gon. The path lies straight ahead and to turn away now would damn me in ways I dare not contemplate.

But there is more to tell, if you'd like to hear it.

It turns out the boy _was_ the Chosen One, oh Master mine. He's balanced the Force out wonderfully, just as you prophesied he would.

Too bad we'd forgotten on which side the scale had been tipped in favor of for the last three thousand years.

The depth of his evil, his cruelty, would astonish even you, Master. The entire Order fell beneath his mindless rage and Coruscant, that proud world, is now nothing but ash and shapeless stones, without even the tiniest of living creatures left to scurry amongst the rubble. I watched the destruction of my friends, my fellows and all that I'd ever held sacred or dear by the boy I'd spent the better part of my life training. And, as his reward to me, his dear Master and friend ... 

I was allowed to live.

As I said, the depth of his cruelty is astonishing.

Now, since that day, I nearly fell to the Dark Side, once, twice, perhaps a dozen times ... I've lost count. I always pull back and occasionally wonder if I don't allow myself to stumble into its grasp for the mere sport of it. Adding a bit of a thrill to an otherwise pointless existence.

It's rather pathetic, I'm sure, but what is there left for a crazy old wizard to do?

Do you wish to hear more, Qui-Gon? Or am I simply recapping events that you've been a silent witness to for all these years? If so, please tell me.

I'd hate to bore you needlessly.

*turn around*

No, no ... I cannot turn around, Master. My home ... my Fate, lies just over that dune, only a few steps further on. Weren't you the one who always insisted that I stay focused upon the tasks at hand? To be mindful of the past, mindful of the future, but concentrate always on the present?

Forgive me Master, but the Present insists that I walk on.

But I have a few more tales to tell you.

It is rumored that one night a year, on Ootlak, they set out a dinner plate for the dead, leave the door wide open and await their arrival. "We must be ready," they chant, until the food is grown cold and the night has rotted away.

I never knew if any deceased actually make it to these strange suppers, but in my desperation, I confess, I've given it a try. Placing a goodly portion of my life aside, leaving the door to my soul open and inviting you to come in and feast on it, come what may. Night after night I did this, even if I was forced to starve so that you might come and partake of what was left of my existence.

So how ironic it is that you show up on this of all days, Qui-Gon.

The very day I stopped setting a place at the table for you.

*turn around*

No, no, I will not. See how close I am? A new prison awaits me Master, one with walls I can touch, with windows and a door that I may never use, but can clearly see.

Noble Obi-Wan no more, it is in this dry cell that I will become the wily sorcerer Benjamin: a man who will lie, deceive, beguile, betray, delude and defraud without conscience. Doing anything and everything short of cold-blooded murder to make sure that Anakin's son follows the path his father refused.

You will not recognize this man, Master, so it is better that you do not begin to try.

*turn around*

No, I cannot, Master. For the darkness of the twin eclipse is receding and I am standing at the threshold of my final prison, where the desert heat will slowly burn away any of the cold comforts I once held so dear. 

There will be no more glances back, no more dirges or regrets, no more suppers of life for the dead ... nothing except the one infant hope of mine that lives just over that far ridge. Growing tall and strong in the living Force, far from the shadow of his Father's image.

No, I will not turn around for anything now, Master.

As much as I love you still.

====== 

fini

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